by Marie Davis & Margaret Hultz
Perhaps my faith in you is misplaced, but heed my words, it is time Green became a braggart.
Green, the story of Green, my history stretches all the way back to the primordial soup. That’s round about 3.8 billion years ago if you want to get picky about birthdates. Ah yes, great green bacteria—my first creation. Bacteria are such gorgeous, diverse organisms, and I probably should have stopped there. But one of my few personal flaws has been ambition; looking at you I can see that now.
Humans egotistically believe my work has been about a continued “advancement” a polishing up of cells, more division—more complex. That somehow the whole evolution thing was about a slow series of improvements. Of course not. Humans, my simpleton friend, are merely derivative. And honestly, if ambition is my flaw, self aggrandizement is yours.
Contrary to your belief systems, it was genuinely original, creative thinking that sparked unicellular life. Yes! Single cells—now there is some solid, ingenious work. Don’t believe me? Look at what I’ve done with Green, glorious slime mold. Slime starts out as one-celled individuals, yet if things get tough groups of them unite and become a slug. Slugs slowly make their way into the sun, settle down and become plants—it is true my incredulous pal—Green plants. Atop the plants stalks form bulbs where I construct millions of tiny spores that are eventually released to the wind and the whole process begins again. Single cells—slugs—plants—need I say anymore about Green’s brilliance?
Power for me is intoxicating and early on I recognized my own personal potential in photosynthesis. Honestly, I couldn’t flex it enough and my addiction to refashioning light, carbon dioxide and water gradually oxygenated every nook and cranny of the atmosphere and oceans. Oh, how a part of me danced every time I conquered a new milieu. I alone stand responsible for making possible the aerobic respiration and the eventual evolution of large, complex, what you oxymoronically call “intelligent organisms.” Yet, all this hard work that I’ve loved now appears to be the construct of my own downfall. There you have it. I have confessed my misguided romance with ambition.
At this moment, can you possibly set aside your egomaniacal self long enough to see that life comes from Green and lives because of Green? Without me all the walking, slithering, swimming, crawling creatures would flat-out die. Let me tell you, if Green up and decided to move away to some farfetched place like the moon, I can tell you lickety-split humans would be on my doorstep begging me to come home—on your knees—begging.
So do me a favor and stop all this tiresome bickering about whether God exists, or whether God is Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, white, black, brown, or red. God—my dear multi-cellular dolt—is Green. Furthermore, if you keep up all your ungrateful, highfalutin, polluting shenanigans, Green will leave with no immediate plans to return. Oh sure, someday I will come back to another Earth’s primordial soup, but next time around I’m seriously going to rethink this whole ambition thing.